Many proposals have been made in recent years to display video and other digital content of interest to customers in retail stores. Many of these proposals involve the use of TV monitors mounted on the walls of the store, hanging from overhead supports, or mounted in free standing kiosks.
Prior art proposals for video display in retail stores include products that are mounted on the extension of merchandising shelves. These products attach to the front edge of shelves or snap into the shelves' tag moldings. The products protrude into the shopping aisles where shoppers may knock them off or damage them or where they interfere with valuable merchandising space. The products transmit animated messages on small monitors that are usually no larger than three inches tall, two inches deep, and five inches wide. The small size of the devices limits the technology that they can deliver. Small devices have little capacity (including room) to deliver the content that can be delivered with embodiments of the invention, which, at least in preferred forms, will be able to deliver more robust content, using both video and audio.
The present invention provides an improved device for the display of digital content in retail stores, in particular a new shelf unit making it possible to display video and other content in close physical proximity to merchandise to maximize the impact of the information delivered.